ā ļøI decided to post a list of motivational Korean quotes. I got these quotes from this website: anayokota
Motivation doesn't last. Sometimes you'll be so excited to study and learn, but other times you won't want to study at all. If you create a proper study routine and make it a habit to study, you'll be able study even when you don't want to.
LIST:
ģģģ“ ė°ģ“ė¤. Starting is half of the battle.
ģ¤ė ķ ģź°ģ“ ė“ģ¼ ė ģź° ė³“ė¤ ź°ģ¹ģė¤. Spending an hour now is better than spending two tomorrow. Do it now ā donāt procrastinate.Ā
ė¦ėė¼ė ģ ķėėė³“ė¤ ė«ė¤. Better late than never.Ā
ė°°ģģė ģėź° ģė¤. There is no shortcut to learning.
ģ¹ģ§ ģģ ź³µģ 100% ź³Øģøėģ§ ģėė¤. You miss 100% of the shots you donāt take.
āYou're thinking about something, and it makes you forget to talk.ā
As much as it pains me to say this, I think I may have fallen out of love with Korean. I hit a wall I can't seem to surpass with it and I'm running out of ideas on how to try and get past it.
So for the last 6 or so months it's very much been like going through the motions; class, homework, flashcards, repeat. And honestly, not wanting to do any of it. I still kinda don't want to do Anki but I I did not work for a year to get the reviews down from 450 a day to 80 and the pain of clearing all the Int 1 cards is fresh enough that I will do it even when I'm ill just to not get back to 400 again.
I tried doing more to see if that would help feel better about studying, I did 74 days *and counting* on Lingodeer, finished the first course and I'm about a quarter into the second and I'm still doing that since it's nice grammar practice and is only 5 minutes to do and every now and again I have a glimpse of understanding word order. I tried through Jan/Feb to do Lingodeer+ too but yeah after the 30 day badge I stopped that it isn't as engaging to me right now and I don't really need things highlighting how much I don't want to study.
This didn't really help matters though, I thought doing more grammar would help me feel a bit better but alas no. I tried writing on Journaly a little bit but it just highlighted the problem more that I can't use or produce Korean even when writing it. Which is weird to me since in my head that should be easier because i can spend 6 hours thinking about it if I want to unlike in a conversation where you need to reply fairly quickly and I just don't. I sit for like 10 minutes trying to work out what was said to me, and how to reply and end up not saying anything.
I have one last idea, sort of a final ditch effort to not feel like a complete fraud and to show myself I can actually do it. Today I have a lesson with a new tutor, and while I normally run away from social interactions at the best of times I have to learn to comfortably speak to natives, I gotta go speak to natives.
So I'm going right in to the deep end and I booked a conversation lesson with a tutor who has an English level probably very similar to my Korean level and I either correctly gauged my level and if I just speak it'll be fine which would be ideal but I doubt it'll pan out that way, or grossly oversold myself and will fail epically which is what I assume will actually happen. I have spoken to her a little already and I did explain my listening leaves a little *okay well a lot* to be desired and I struggle speaking but want to get better so hopefully I don't just ball up and think to the point of pain and forget to speak.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do if this fails, possibly take a break from languages, possibly continue in denial as I currently am calling it a phase... for now I'm going to say it will work and just shhh. Okay wish me luck, I'm going to need it ā”
This is probably full of mistakes but I tried my best especially after 4 days of having no contact with Korean ć ć but yeah I havenāt really watch a new release movie in years, I think the last film I saw at release was The Girl on the Train which was I think 2016? And before that was Monsterās University which was 2013 so some fair gaps there. Anyway, the main point of this ramble is since I was a child Iāve been a big Scooby Doo nerd and to this day still watch like 2 hours every weekend. Used to be 2 hours on both Saturday and Sunday but they donāt seem to show it on Saturday anymore not sure why.
I saw the original movie in the cinema, I remember my aunt and uncle took me to see it and itās been in my film collection since, I had both films on VHS *age myself there much* then when my video player died I bought the dvdās for them and theyāre still in my dvd collection, though 3 and 4 only lasted 2 watches they annoyed me way more than anything realistically should but yeah they went into a donation box fairly quickly. Those aside I still enjoy the original 2 of what should have been 3 films, theyāre probably still my most frequently watched films. They make me happy, the casting I think is pretty solid, some of the CG hasnāt aged well but itās still better than some recent films so for 2002 itās going damn well.
Also I have a soft spot for Matthew Lillard and Seth Green as Without a Paddle is the reason I got an A in Chemistry, no jokeĀ ā” so even out with these 2 films I have very fond memories around the cast so yeah nostalgia veil going strong and I donāt care :3 Iām an adult I can love the same film I did at age 6 if I want to, no shame here.
Indecisive me said lets roll a dice to pick todays topic, of course it picked one I had no answer for in the first place. I tried to write something regardless but Iām not sure how well I got the point across. I suspect thatās going to be a running theme for the next while but hey ho, one way to see progress is less headaches and longer posts :)
Corrections are very much welcome for these since Iām only half sure what Iām doingĀ ā”
Short and sweet because I have no idea what to say and it took me like 6 hours just to figure out how to say my degree name, which I'm still not actually sure if it's right I don't know the difference between ģģķ and ģė„ķ so that may be the wrong name.
I'm very much new to actually using Korean even though I've been studying it for a very long time now so corrections are always welcome, and if I missed anything important please let me know and I'll follow up with some answers. |Ļļ½„`)
Hopefully these will be more interesting as we go on cloudlang has set me quite the list of prompts to get me started writing (and she's amazing so go give her some support too) and I'll apologise for making the same particle mistakes now, I am still very confused by when to use ģ/ė/ģ“/ź°/ģ/ė„¼ but I'm trying my best ā”
After a small break from posting to focus on Korean I've noticed I have hit a new roadblock, and one I hadn't anticipated at the beginning of the year.
Over the summer I managed to pass from the Int1 class to the Int2 class with my tutor and I was absolutely bricking it when she told me this because from my studies into Beginner was a big leap in work load, and Beginner to Int1 was insanity I had 200(ish, it varied by chapter) vocab/expressions a week and it was just impossible to clear a chapter before the next one was assigned. So the thought of it going up again was not fun, however so far that's not happened. It's only been about 20 words a week but all the grammar explainations are now in Korean so that's maybe the trade off there.
However, with this dip in the immediate workload I've noticed that I don't find Korean fun anymore. I feel like I'm just doing it for class now and it's just for a deadline and I feel stagnent with my progress I feel like I'm still a beginner and I'm a fraud in the Int2 class cause I may know 1200 words but I can't use 98% of them cause I can't make sentences and express myself in Korean.
I don't know if this feeling is burnout, it doesn't feel like burnout though it's more unlike being unmotivated and just not wanting to do anything with Korean even just getting my flashcards done is a struggle right now and I'd finally got them under 200 a day after the peak of 400+ in Int1 which did slightly fry my head near the end. I've noticed before I'd do work for my class but also do things for myself like topik grammar classes, or ttmik courses, or using my books, but now it's so hard to open anything to study for fun.
So with this I've basically been pouring an unhealthy amount of hours into animal crossing *again* which I say like I haven't done the same thing in Skyrim before several times over across I think 6 save files now and 2000 hours minimum not even going into other games but shhh.
I want to try and strike a better balance for the remainder of the year, I know it's not even 3 months but I think since I'm skipping my normal end of year activities such as Inktober and NaNoWriMo because I do not have enough time/energy this year and I'm not going to try and actually burn out again like 2018 because no, it should be doable to make small changes to try and regain the fun in Korean and not hit 1000 hours in AC before November because atm that's very likely.
At the moment my plan im progress is I want to try and doing daily writing in the vain hope of getting some progress with the sentence forming thing and hopefully it will help with getting comfortable with the grammar too. My friend very kindly made me a list of topics to write about to get started so we'll see how well I can answer those. I'd also like to wrap up my topik grammar class cause it will expire soon and there's only 3 classes left of the 23 total and it probably will be useful for some of the harder propmts cause there's some tricky ones in there. Though she may say the same for the ones I gave her so I shouldn't complain.
Once I get the topik course done I'll probably relax a little since nothing else can run out, I might then split my time reading and progressing ttmik classes cause I don't want to over do it since I will still have homework, and tests, and just generally other homework so I don't want to commit to too much. I just want to be doing something in Korean that's for me and what I want to do not just for classes and somebody else. So if nothing else tomorrow I will be here and posting in Korean and hopefully it's not a disaster...
Animal Crossing: New Horizons was finally released! We have been waiting years for this moment and couldnāt be happier now its here! We can also thank Animal Crossing: New Leaf for our friendship - without it we probably wouldnāt be such good friends, and probably wouldnāt have made this blog!Ā
Anyway, we hope you are all having so much fun ~ in your homes ~ exploring your new islands, weād love to see what you guys have done! Send us an ask and we can exchange friend codes and play together!
So itās been a little while, Iād taken a break from Korean to clear my head and get away from the negative space it had fallen into. As I started easing back into it I noticed some things that Iād not noticed I was doing before.
So I have always had a huge fear of speaking Korean, have done since like 2013 when I was just about able to read. I was so scared to speak that I basically never have, even in my tutor lessons I get constantly promptedĀ āanswer in Koreanā and it was out of the fear of failure and insulting/upsetting someone. So this is one way that shows that being held back by the fear of failure essentially created the failure I feared, I held myself back so much that when I wanted to talk to people I couldnāt. Not to say I insulted them, but I couldnāt understand them, and even on the rare occasions when I could I didnāt know how to reply I couldnāt give an answer.
At first I brushed this off, it was all in my head. I told myself the struggle was from lack of people to talk to, I had no natives to chat with and textbooks werenāt natural enough so the way they spoke confused me. Which technically isnāt entirely false as textbooks often are more formal or stiff than how people naturally talk so it was easy to tell myself.
How did I come to believe how much I was hindering myself? Well, the TTMIK website update. That sounds a bit random, but it kind of is so bear with me here. As many people know up until a day or two ago the end of level test dialogs were removed from the basic members (and premium members to be fair they were completely removed no paywall) level 1-5 courses. Now I was very sad to see them go, Iād wished that I knew theyād go before the original site went down to download them and their pdfs to use them even though I was only just into level 3 and wouldnāt be near some of them for a good while yet.
So there was a good weekish where I was kicking myself over this, and then they added them back. I was so excited that I went back and re-listened to the level 1 and 2 dialog as soon as they appeared back in the lists. Which is also how I found out there were certificates for the essential courses cause it showed as 100% complete but they only showed up after I marked the dialogs complete, so for anyone else i that boat, or with an old completed course thatās marked complete and doesnāt have a certificate on it if you undo and re-complete a lesson in the course itāll show up. I had that happen with how Korean sentences work, slight tangent there.
Going back to the dialog tests, when I first moved up from level 1 I listened to the dialog and it was like white noise, I didnāt understand a word listening and even reading the script I didnāt understand most of it. Actually the same happened with level 2 not that long ago though I understood more while reading this time round. This time, even with the traffic noises in the background I understood 90% of the level 1 dialog. I was so surprised that I understood any of it I went and read it to make sure I was right, I didnāt trust myself. I donāt know if it was because the less I thought about it the more comfortably I could follow it or if I just remember trying last summer and being like the first time, or if it was because it was 3 people and Iāve never really had luck with 1 person speaking nevermind 3 and that made me question it.
Now with level 2 it wasnāt as smooth but it was still better. The first half was absolutely fine, I could just about follow it but the end I really fell over. At first I scolded myself, itās only level 2 how can you not follow it, youāre meant to be an intermediate student, youāre a failure.
I always thought failing in a language meant giving up on it, but now I think I might have misjudged that. Iāve been doing flashcards daily and again I donāt give credit for the 100+ I get right but the 20 odd I forget or slightly misremembered I beat myself up over those. I have over 6000 cards, I canāt expect to remember them all perfectly thatās why I have flashcards in the first place. Really was it any wonder I felt I wasnāt making progress when thatās where my focus was.
My biggest failure has been not giving myself the credit for how far Iāve come, I was so focused on the small details I forgot about the big picture. Iāve come so far with Korean, I can read, write, and on a good day speak and on a fantastic day I can understand when people when they speak. And yet, I never stop and acknowledge that. Iāve had days ruined by doing flashcards which is ridiculous to say but I was so upset over how badly Iād done. So Iāve decided to scrap my new years goals for Korean and instead I want to sort out my headspace.
This year I want to be more positive about the learning process. I want (and need) to learn to have a better work/rest balance because working to burnout and then having to take huge breaks and restart isnāt healthy and also isnāt helping the feeling of not progressing. It would also be nice to get past the current procrastinating by doing other studying things. Like I have homework to do but Iāll do an essential course grammar lesson, or a video course lesson (or 5) etc you get the idea itās avoiding the work I donāt wanna do by making it still feel productive unlike spending a day playing video games. Basically I want to stop feeling like Iāve failed at KoreanĀ ā”
Okay so by some manner of miracle I passed the level test, but I kind of wish I hadnāt. I hadnāt really managed to cope well with the vocab dumps from the beginner course and the intermediate textbook is sooooooo much worse. Itās lists and lists of vocab, 2-3 times more per unit compared to the beginner, and then phrases on top of that. Also itās the worst textbook Iāve ever used, I understand why it exists but I am very much not the target audience for it. The amount of mistakes in it is worrying Iāve found mistake myself and had to get a lot of the vocab lists words corrected, to actual use which is the one positive to having to do the chapter exercises. The grammar explanations are really worrying, any textbook that talks about allowing dogs to die to eat them is very concerning to me. I say allowing cause they could have used the same grammar to say they were taking the sick dog to the vet rather than thinking about eating it. Also some weird vocab that even in English I never use and it makes me wonder if the writer was just accounting for every kind of person or is this a reflection of how foreigners are treated in Korea... really hope itās the first one.
So, with this new textbook came a substantial lull in my will to study. I wanted to study but because most of my studies were dictated by the tutor I had to do a lot of work with this textbook which just sapped me. There was a brief moment where I thought thatās where Korean ends for me thatās how much I dislike this textbook. Thankfully sheās realised the effect it was having on my work flow so now itās not the main focus. I still have to finish it, but itās not what Iām working on week to week Iām not working on stories and speaking which I really desperately need anyways I do not get enough practice speaking or forming sentences. Itās also really nice to see traditional stories not just translated ones even if I donāt understand the difference between seemingly identical verbs.
I hope that this helps with the struggle that is making sentences, or at least help chip at that fear making them out loud cause thatās very much a problem too since I can just about handle the 3-5 word basic ones like ģ°ģ“ ė§ź³ ėøė”ģ»¬ė¦¬ ģ¢ģģ. with relative ease *if I got that the right way around word order still a bit of a struggle*. So basic words, beginner tenses, no particles because I still never get Ā the subject/topic/object ones right first time they confuse me so much. I should really try and just accept the fear and run with the mistakes but speaking to people is so stressful so I need to find a good way to ease into that. Maybe speaking to other learners would be a good starting point, if anyone sees this and has any tips for language practice/exchange I would greatly appreciate it cause I have tried and bolted out of conversations after 5 minutes so I need lots of help ć ć
Basically I need to let go a lot of underlying perfectionist tendencies and roll with the punches but thatās easier said than done so this year I hope to work on that. Social anxiety is a big focus for 2020 anyway so letās see if messaging people can get any easier regardless of the language itās in.
Okay, so the eventual has come. My tutor has given me the date for the end of course test. I mean I always knew it was coming she told me the set up back in my trial lesson when she didnāt know if Iād even take lessons from her yet. However, I wasnāt expecting it so soon.
I donāt feel like Iām ready to take the test, I know itās a 4 part reading, writing, listening, speaking test. At the moment I feel I can almost do one of those never mind all of them in one go. I want to do well and Iāve been trying to improve my weak areas but my lessons started mid-late November last year thatās not even a full year I havenāt even gotten all the vocab down let alone have any clue about the grammar. I literally had to make myself a cheat sheet chart for grammar cause I literally remember maybe 5 of the 35 in the textbook, and thatāsĀ even worse when you consider the overall number for the year currently stands at 74.Ā
I have been doing my flashcards daily trying in vain to get the vocab down to the point Iāve learned that Anki can mark cards as leeches, like how many times do you have to forget a word for that to trigger itās been months of failing at vocab whyās it only starting to do that now? Also no I donāt want you to decide the cards not worth studying thatās not how classes work I canāt choose to ignore problem vocab much as Iād like to. I still have issues with uni course names, actually at this point general uni words like major/minor, credit etc. Though again that may be down to in my school experience none of those words apply.
As much as Iād love to try the intermediate course, I know it naturally will be harder than what Iām already doing which I donāt deem easy anyway. I guess Iām just hopeful that because Iāve tried so hard this year especially with being ill and not having the best retention, or concentration, and generally just being drained I might still do okay. Though factoring that in, I feel like Iāve managed a fair amount regardless of pass or fail.
With a current pool of over 2000 vocab, I donāt have manyĀ problematic words andĀ Iāve gotten over the issues with most of them. The grammarās still difficult but I suppose one side always will be harder than the other. I know with time it probably will improve, with slowly being able to read more (harder) texts, having something that resembles listening skills will also help loads since Iāll be able to listen to songs, and radio shows, and podcasts and even watch tv and be able to hear the grammar in use. I understand why my tutor wants me to avoid Korean tv for the moment but itās also kind of a bummer cause I see people being all excited about shows and I want to try and stay spoiler free but also do as Iām asked... please lift the ban soon ;u;
Basically Iām panicking over this test and slowly realising how little high school actually did to show you how to study properly. High school studying was a wing and a prayer and cramming in vain and retaining literally nothing after the fact. I didnāt really notice till now since at the time itās all we knew, and was what everyone was doing and what the teacherās basically told us to do and that was just the norm and was fine. But now when I actually need/want to study and retain long term itās like walking through thick fog and Iām wandering aimless and hopeful but I could easily fall flat on my face or into a well or something.
My expectations of how this will go, is I will probably fail and itāll be down to lack of grammar. Though I donāt really know what Iām going into more than simply youāll be tested on all sides. I donāt even know what the pass rate is or if itās 100%/fail. Iām not sure which Iād prefer to be honest, I donāt know if Iām ready for intermediate, I canāt tell where I sit anymore which is part of my stress like I could be fine and ace it or I could be as prepared as a 7 year old taking a standard grade (I know theyāre nat 5ā²s now, but Iām old theyāre the exams I know I donāt understand the new exams, but if you took them please feel free to let me know Iād love to see if they made life easier for people with the new set up).
I think Iāll make myself a supportive cup of tea and just have it with me should I need it in the hope it will mean I wonāt run away and or start crying, I suppose Iāll find out on the day but I generally do better on practical exams so Iām easily most worried about the written section, even more so if the questions are written in Korean. Iām just going to be walking stress until this is over It think,Ā but thank you for reading and happy learning~ Ā ā”
Okay so for the longest time Iāve had a confidence issue with Korean. For some reason, Iāve always felt I couldnāt write/speak because I couldnāt form sentences. Iāve literally held myself up with Papago for the last 18 months or so. Ā Every time Iāve had to write anything, whether it was for homework, or I posted on my insta story (granted it was all of twice I remember doing that in Korean) Iāve used Papago/Naver Translate. Not to say I was typing in English and just copied what it spouted in Korean, I did try in Korean and just failed miserably every single time, and took advantage of some of the predictive answers too.
Safe to say, I knew this was holing me back. So this week I decided to try and correct this. On top of wanting to work on my listening skills since they suck, this was a huge hurdle that Iād created for myself. Maybe this was part of the reason I have massive anxiety around using Korean, or at least why theyāve carried on this long.
So when I received my last load of grammar homework I looked at making a change. Aside from having Naver up for the words Iād never seen before cause that always seems to happen in these exercises, seriously if itās not at least shown in the textbook why would they assume you know it, I made an attempt to do it on my own. For the essay question I did check after the fact to make sure the gist was right and caught a pretty bad typo from it that could have been concerning. Safe to say, while discussing the weather the word skinning shouldnāt be involved. But other than this I did it by myself, and uh turns out my understanding of word classes and their rules is not very good.
Even in English I have no idea most of the time which really doesnāt help matters. Itās all well and good saying this is how you make a verb into an adverb, when you donāt know what an adverb is in the first place or how to use one. If it had said this can only be used with verbs, it would have been fine Iād probably have no got half the sentences wrong since all the exercises were intended to test the adverb conjugation and vocab understanding in one go.
This actually took so long to get to the root of the problem we only got a fraction corrected so that didnāt help matters, though she did give me an interesting explanation of the -ź² conjugation I wouldnāt have gotten from just the textbook so that was sort of worth it. While it was about what I expected I was still really happy when I got it right. I mean I think nearly all them had incorrect particles too but I struggle so much with those. Though I have done some work on that this week too in vain hope of getting them right more.
So all in all a fairly good experience for a first time trying to do the work without relying on Papago. While it was only a little step forward since I still had to check on what Iād done but Iām trying and having some success for the benefit so so far so good. Hopefully things continue to go well and I can soon put papago completely out of my mind.Ā Anyways, thank you for reading and happy learning~ Ā ā”
Lately Iāve been feeling rather deflated about my Korean studies, I feel like no matter how hard I try I just stay standing still. A little like wading quicksand. I tried so hard to move forward, I was churning through my vocab cards in vain hope that some of them would start to click and IāmĀ still struggling hard. For some reason uni subjects just donāt retain for me, or the 4 marrige verbs (engaged, married, divorced, remarried) though thatās possibly in part to not being something Iāve thought anything about in English let alone Korean.
I am maintaining my italki lessons, which are currently equally frustrating to me as I fell after nearly a year and being basically finished the beginners course (having started unit 20 of 20) I should at least be able to write a decent sentence. Or at least able to write more than one three word sentence without resorting to checking every word on Papago. Admittedly that ones on me but Iām not confident at all in my abilities and I donāt want to offend anyone. Still traumatised by the time I accidentally swore without knowing Iād strung a word togetherĀ let alone a cuss.
So I had a good long think about what I was doing, what I wanted to be able to do and decided that thereās going to be a little change of action this week. Since I managed to do all my homework the day it was given which Iāve never managed before, I get to do what I want this week so Iām taking steps to tackle a major problem area. Listening.
For someone whose been listening to K-pop for like 7-8 years my listening is awful, I can listen and pick up the words and sing along quite happily, Iāve even performed several K-Pop songs but I canāt listen to dialog and understand much of anything. I am not exaggerating when I say my tutor can say something, even something simple in Korean and I will understand nothing and then sheāll type it for me and Iāll understand perfectly, like I know I spend years studying alone with books but thatās really bad 11 months on from my trial lesson with her.
Now, I know she really doesnāt like TTMIK, but since Iād already bought an excessive amount of their products before saying this (well and I like them which is the important thing) Iām going to use them. So after going through the things I had I have picked out the Listening Practice in Slow Korean, and IYAGI Beginnerās courses and instead of just listening to them Iām dictating them. So far Iāve done the ź¹ė°„ and ģ¹“ķ stories, with varying degrees of success. For 3-4 minute stories, theyāre taking 2 hours to write and correct so Iām worried about moving onto the IYAGI ones cause they probably will get longer.
Even at only being 2 stories in I am noticing an improvement. There were words in the ź¹ė°„ story that I got very very wrong and in the ģ¹“ķ story managed to get them right so I can see that there is some progress, which is really nice but Iām hoping it gets to a point were I hear it and understand it because thatād be really nice. Iām also handwriting them because that way I donāt have the red squiggly line of ānope, try againā because I donāt trust myself not to autopilot and fix it before I realise what I did.
Iām also hoping listening to all these Iāll start to understand sentence structure more and begin to help the grammar side of things cause I know thatās part of my problem too. I have covered at least 250 grammar points and I remember maybe 10 of them. Not to mention anything that might help with understanding what particles to use when can only help. ģ/ė/ģ“/ź°/ģ/ė„¼ are probably the thing Iāve reviewed most and I still basically guess which is the appropriate particle in the sentence, sadly knowing whether to use ģ or ė doesnāt help decide if its ģ, ģ“ or ģ.
Iām hoping by the end of this exercise I will have a better foundation for my listening skills, or at least create a foundation for my listening skills since theyāre incredibly lacking. I have been instructed not to use dramaās for listing practice, reasons not given and technically I was told not to use TTMIK either but shhh weāll just not mention that.
So thatās my goal for the rest of this year, I feel like it will be the best starting place for everything Iād like to improve going forward. I feel like if I can do more listening and actually understand what Iām hearing rather than it just being noise Iāll be able to play more with the language and be able to listen to podcasts or watch tv or one of the growing piles of dvdās and not have to rely on Korean subs just to know what theyāre saying, regardless of comprehension. Nothing to do with having 0 idea how else to tackle grammar so itās less of a problem area. Anyways, thank you for reading and happy learning~ Ā ā”
You are NOT PROCRASTINATING, if
- youāre sick
- you have headache
- you feel pain
- youāre exhausted
- you feel anxious
- you have had big changes in your life that make you feel tired/restless/anxious/sad
- you have to skip a class/take rest because of reasons I mentioned above.
Itās not procrastinating. Youāre not lazy. Everyone needs to have rest and take care of themselves when theyāre sick. IT IS NOT OKAY TO WORK IN PAIN. Donāt burn out. Itās not worth it.
Do not feel guilty. After some rest and relaxing you will study even more effectively.
If you feel pain,
- take a medicine if it works for you
- put all of your books away
- take warm shower
- eat at least 1 healthy thing and 1 treat/feel-good-food, drink water
- go to bed, sleep or read a book/listen to music that is not related to your schoolĀ (if you have headache/migraine I suggest you to switch off the lights and just sleep)
- just take your time - itāll be all okay.
Anyone else who doesnāt like to tell others that theyāre learning Korean because people will think youāre learning it because of some boys, and not because of the genuine interest in Korean language and culture that you developed alongside your interest in kpop?
So Iāve been using iTalki for a while now and I thought Iād come in with an update because, well I didnāt expect to be still going through with it this long, and itās just nice to see reviews. I like reading through them sometimes and I canāt be the only one.Ā (ĀÆāĀÆŁ„)
I had made my account back in February last year, but didnāt feel brave enough to deal with it then so I left it sitting with a few teachers favourited but nothing more done on the site. After several months of arguing with myself, IĀ did my first trial lesson mid September, and was absolutely terrified. I actually had a panic attack 5-10 minutes before it started and nearly knocked a full cup of tea over my laptop. Probably wasnāt my best move, I knew Iād have an empty house and thought it would be the best time to try it out because I knew the house would be quiet but it came with having to pull myself together very quickly which Iām not very good at even now.Ā
So the trial lesson was essentially a placement test, she gave me things to read to see what my pronunciation and reading abilities were, reading was way worse than I thought it was going into it which was a good reality check on my studies. Then after that, I had a bunch of words Iād to define if I could, or I was given the English word to see if I knew the Korean word for. I knew Iād have to do this going in, but I wasnāt expecting to struggle as much as I did. Granted Iād never had that type of interaction where I couldnāt take as much time as I needed to and had to actually hold a conversation in a reasonable time.
After this she told me that if I was to take lessons from her Iād be in the beginners course, which Iād expected anyways being on beginner textbooks at the time. She was really good about giving corrections, I wasnāt allowed to progress until I said it correctly, which is something that I really wanted to have in a tutor since well who wantās to learn to speak incorrectly. Added bonus of having something to work on each week was a big selling point at the time, I was in dire need of some structure at that point.
Since then itās been very up and down, much like normal classes Iāve been both excited to have work to do and severely bored of it. There have been weeks where I could knock everything out and understand everything, but mostly itās been a whole lot of headaches and frustration. Even with this my tutorās been super understanding, if I canāt manage the work for one reason or another (not for lack of trying) itās fine, and if I need to reschedule for a doctors appointment even rather last minute itās sorted with no issue which is particularly useful right now.
Even though right now I canāt get my head round 80% of what Iām doing right now, and itās driving me crazy, I know Iām still making progress. Without these lessons, Iād never have spoken a word in Korean, I wouldnāt be trying form sentences properly (not talking about the success rate here since itās still basically non-existent) and Iād be about 10 steps further back with particles than I currently am. Not that Iām very far forward but Iām making fewer mistakes than I was and thatās a start for now.
Even ignoring the actual learning side of the tutoring, I can see a huge improvement overall. I no longer take panic attacks before the calls, anxiety spikes still happen but theyāre way easier to deal with. Iām no longer a sobbing mess afterwards either. Normally Iād have to sleep something like that off for 2+ hours, but now I can just go on and do something else (at home anyways). Iāve never been good at talking to anyone, let alone strangers, and now I can somewhat comfortably hold a conversation and not have a total meltdown.
By no means would I say itās a magical one size fits all cure, I mean more than 1 person and Iām still way out my depth and basically useless, but I can now manage 1 person. Even if itās not in person,Ā 1 person is a start. I never thought Iād be able to get on top of my social anxiety, but this makes me feel like itās not quite as impossible now.
Going back to the language side of it, I do still get tongue tied, and I have momentās when I just wanna hang up and run away and yes I say the wrong word which for her is hilarious half the time because it obviously sounds ridiculous and thatās fair. Sometimes I can even laugh at it too. This would have been impossible this time last year, I would have been a sobbing wreck and probably would have hung up there and then and not went back. So the fact I still take my lessons, I think that shows some progress.
Overall, Iām glad I took this leap. Itās something I never saw myself doing, and now Iād seriously consider doing it again for another language in the future, and even more so doing it myself possibly. I donāt know if Iāll act on that one, but I wouldnāt have even thought of it before so itās something interesting Iāve noticed. While it can be very daunting to find a tutor because of the sheer number of them, and then finding one that suits you/isnāt too expensive for you can take longer still but is definitely worth the effort. Admittedly if youāre like me and are (very) socially anxious then it will be hard at first, and it may not be for you but I would say itās worth trying it to see if it can help. You can tell the person that you have this anxiety and it can be a way to either make it easier to go ahead with it, or learn that theyāre not the tutor for you, and this can be done before paying for anything so something to keep in mind.
I am sad that the trial lessons are capped at 3 (1 per teacher) but I can understand why this is implemented. It was a nice test to see if a tutor suited but apparently that wasnāt the intended use so I canāt really argue with the decision. I did only use 1 knowing I wanted to do more languages in the future and I was very lucky to find someone that did what I was looking for/was comfortable with first try but not everyone will be this fortunate so thatās something else to be aware of.
I hope this was somewhat useful, I know thereās a lot of reviews for iTalki but I didnāt find a lot from other people with social anxiety, at least I personally couldnāt really find them not to say there are none. If I missed anything, or you want to know anything I missed just let me know and I will do my best to reply.Ā Thank you for reading and happy learning~ Ā ā”
Hello~ as requested, here is my language journey/experience post. So fair warning this is a very long post. Way longer than I meant it to be, but I did warn this when you guys asked for it so Iām sorry in advance.
For this, Iām going chronologically, but Iāll mark it clearly if you wanna just read specific bits, I donāt blame anyone who wants to skip sections it is a lot of text. With that said, letās begin~
1st:Ā Spanish.
My first experience learning language was in Primary school, at aged 10 (due to a late birthday) when we were surprised by a sparkly new class that wasnāt offered in the school before. Spanish. I donāt remember much from this point being nearly 14 years ago but I remember finding the class difficult because the teacher wasnāt very approachable and seemed to play favourites. At least in the context of only helping certain pupils rather than all the pupils. I picked up a few things, like 1-10 and some animal names but that was about it.
I continued Spanish in High school as it was a mandatory subject in the first 2 years, I learned more from these classes mostly I think because they were more used to teaching the subject but I canāt say that with any certainty. I have mixed memories from this time as we were forced to endless exercises that didnāt explain anything, yes/no style corrections which donāt help anyone, and my teacher told me off for knowing the answer (I still remember this clearly, she asked what the word for fish was, I said pez. Then she asked what the plural was, I said peces and she scolded me for knowing that. To this day, I donāt know why) so that was traumatising for me and meant I didnāt speak up in class again for well over a year.
At this point Iām 4 years-ish into Spanish and I think Iām doing okay, I can do the homework and the exercises with minimal issue (not always correct, but was done in a reasonable time) and we get to picking our subjects for our exams. At which point, my teacher who was talking to everyone about their choices as most did (this was to explain the exam courses and what to expect so you know what youāre choosing, which I think was a nice thing but they stopped doing this sadly) and when it was my turn, it was āimpliedā that if I picked the subject I wouldnāt be allowed to take the class. I was told that I wasnāt smart enough to pass so I couldnāt take either language course and that Iād to pick another department.
This knocked any confidence I had with languages, I thought Iād been doing okay, at parents night I always had good comments so I donāt know what prompted this delightful comment. And with it being their word against mine I couldnāt prove it was said, but I knew the school would have sided with them anyway.Ā This is also the reason I have Spanish as a want to learn rather than can speak because aside from my fish trauma, I can count to 99 and do basic insa chitchat and thatās all I retained. Oh and the words for library and sharpener, because my favourite place is a library and un sacapuntas is just something thatās always amused me for reasons unknown.
2nd: Korean
So, fun fact, IāmĀ surprised that Koreanās here because I actually had been counting it as 3rd until I actually thought about it for this. My derpiness aside, Korean comes in at the beginning of my 5th year so would be late 2011 (Our school year starts mid-August) when my friend introduced me to K-Pop and oh boy my mp3 player has never looked the same since. It was a serious exam year, so no great progress was possible, especially with trying to get into college. I didnāt find TTMIK till much later than this but for this point in time, I found the lyrics on live performances really intriguing. I mean itās nothing I was used to seeing on our equivalent shows, they never had the lyrics up for songs, in fact I donāt remember them telling you the artist half the time was towards the end of their broadcasting time. That tangent aside, the words just looked really beautiful and by September that year I was enamoured by the sound of the language, so I started looking up things about Korean in between the onslaught of homework and assessments. Also according to old social media I was subconsciously singing it from the December onwards, so good to know that that was always a thing I did. It took me until March to be able to read enough to write and even then it crude as anything. Thereās very little trace of anything from that time but I struggle to read what there is.
Sadly this is where things end here for now, exams and getting into college and having space to breathe after years of being up till 2am trying to get all my work done and not having weekends cause I had to study too kind of pushed it to the back burner. What can I say, it was the first actually free summer Iād had in 5 years and I wanted it to be a detox before college started just in case it was the same set up of no sleep. And then I bumped into the aforementioned Spanish teacher again over the summer who made a comment to the effect of āBet youāre glad you didnāt take Spanish, otherwise youād have a nasty fail on your results.ā Which for one annoyed me because it implied I had any say in the matter, but also removed any confidence I had regained since our last encounter.
3rd: Japanese
Now this is going to be really underwhelming, youāve been warned. So I picked up Japanese in exam season 2012 (ācause I clearly didnāt have enough going on) and if I recall correctly used Japanesepod101 for it. I just followed their podcasts so I never learned to read just speaking/listening really. I suppose the 3 alphabets scared me off some, still kinda does scare me but I have a plan of action now so itās a long term goal rather than wishful/fearful thinking. Still not sure what prompted this though, maybe an anime revival, or just finally caving since Iād wanted to for years.
Anyway, I got through the most basic level on JP101, and a little into the next one when as previous stated getting into college/return of the Spanish teacher caused a little bit of a crisis and I fell away from languages. I also have retained basically no Japanese, and this bothers me so I look forward to getting back to where I was.
2nd (again): Korean
Oh hi, Koreanās back again. Okay this time itās gonna be a little longer, this goes up until the day Iām posting this. So I picked Korean back up in 2013. At this point I found TTMIK (through yahoo answers would you believe, they hadnāt come up in my search for learning Korean back then). I did level 1 and then I think only got to lesson 4 of level 2 before college hit like a tonne of bricks. And then we have another gap.
We come back in yet again in 2017. I never stopped listening to K-pop, sorta dipped in and out of dramas in that time very lazily, but didnāt really learn anything between 2013-2017. I had to reteach myself to read because it was really hazy and only half remembered, no surprise though it had been more than 5 years since Iād really touched on it at that point.
So once I could comfortably read again, I was confident to go ahead and redo level 1. I did all 25 lessons in 2 weeks. Level 2 however, that caused more trouble. Admittedly I was really ill at this point, I actually had to stop working because of it so level 2 was a lot slower than I wanted or even expected. I knew it was basically new ground in level 2 but even so it was difficult to see the time between lessons, and how much work it was to understand lessons progressively increasing.
I had hoped to get it done in 6 weeks, but it took about a year. Even now some things I still struggle with and get muddled, though itās getting better with time which is reassuring. At this point my motivation was crippled. I wasnāt progressing, I was barely looking at Korean and I honestly thought about quitting. It also wasnāt helping that the studygram that had once been an ally turned foe showing me all the work everyone else was doing while I was doing nothing at all.
I have now since learned that it doesnāt have to be something demotivating. If someone wants to study 13 hours a day, fantastic! But thatās not for me. Some days are easier than others, I am still in recovery and thatās okay. Some days I can do 4 hours no trouble, others 5 minutes seems impossible. But I should have days off, I shouldnāt make myself ill worrying about studying. I should have time for games, and painting, and wandering round the woods with my camera, and general self care things.
In saying this, Iām guilty of saying this then ignoring it. Especially since I started using italki, where Iād have to learn 100 words, write a presentation and answer 30 questions in a week. I should push myself to try and do the homework, but at the same time, I have other things to do too and I shouldnāt torture myself with cramming homework and nothing else cause it takes so long to try and do the stuff thatās physically handed in let alone anything else.
Donāt get me wrong I love my tutor, sheās the only person who has me laughing at my mistakes, has me trying to use the language because I was terrified of doing that before. Well, I still somewhat am, but itās getting better. Sometimes the workload is a little crazy, funny how I wanted homework now I just want to throw it all away and just do what I feel I need with the language between lessons. Not sure if itās a phase or the initial excitementās wore off and itās not like wading quicksand.
So, before I start rambling Iām going to have a tl;dr summery here inĀ regards to Korean this year.
The good from this year is hands down the studygram/studyblr community. Before I was annoying people talking about or posting about studying Korean, and these communities offered me a safe welcoming place to be where I could discuss what I was learning, and even get help when needed. I will always be eternally grateful to those who answer my questions in relation to anything, be it being unable to read handwriting, or grammar, or vocab confusion or something as simple as recommendations.
Slightly less good, no fault of Korean admittedly, probably is the difficulty in understanding and retaining information. Most of it is down to being ill. The rest, just generally me being confused because the way our schools teach English, so I donāt really know the different word classes and the rules for each. I canāt look at a word and be like, thatās an adverb, or even if Iām told āoh this is and adjectiveā I really donāt know what to do with that information. I can do noun, and verb thatās about it. Not for lack of trying though, I have since tried to teach myself, and I have a cheat sheet but I canāt use that in a conversation so hardly a great use. It also means forming sentences is quite tricky, since if one type of word must follow another to be grammatically correct, or even make sense I have no clue about it.
Even further from good, and not something I like to dwell on too long, I feel like Iām cheating with Korean 95% of the time. With Spanish, I never had to double check anything, I could form sentences, and say what I wanted with what I knew and it was fine, but with Korean, itās like the exactly opposite. I donāt trust myself to write anything without quadruple checking it. I wish I could just write sentences and just look up words/grammar as I need them but no every word of every sentence and even then itās still flooded with mistakes which doesnāt help me try and wean bad habits.
So yeah I think that about wraps up Korean, but it doesnāt sound particularly good in this explanation. Hopefully next year itās better.
4th: Turkish
Langjam number 1 (for me), and I had Turkish. Delightful experience, granted I was very ill. I had the flu that weekend because of course it had to hit that weekend, Iām not allowed to have plans apparently. But it was fun, I learned how much of a time sink grammatical concepts are. I feel like all I did was learn grammar that weekend, and I donāt remember any of it, but I still have the sentence I made at the end of the weekend:
āMerhaba, adım Rosie. Hastayım bu yĆ¼zden fazla ƧalıÅmadım. Ama, TĆ¼rkƧe ƧalıÅmaktan mutluyum.ā
Not going to lie, all I remember clearly is Merhaba, but thatās better than nothing. I would love to go back and do it properly, or at least without the flu. One of my best friends, a very sweet bean is from Turkey and Iād love to be able to try and speak to them in Turkish a little since they speak English every day for me and yeah Iād love to be able to chat to them a little (though I still canāt type it on my laptop properly so that should perhaps be task one on returning to it).
I donāt know when Iāll go back to Turkish, but I kept all my resources and my notebook so it should be good when I do. Perhaps when I get to an intermediate level in Korean Turkish can resurface, though donāt hold me to that I may just wanna do it randomly.Ā
Thatās it for now! Bet youāre glad you donāt have to read anymore of my boring language past ;)Ā If I missed anything, or didnāt entirely answer the question you asked, just let me know and Iāll try and get back to you as soon as possible.Ā Thank you for reading, have some cookies and happy learning~ ā”
